Encyclopaedia Minecraftia
by GreatOverseer
Summary: Containing the major fauna of Minecraftia, this volume of information will shock and awe you to no end. - Compiled by Prof. R.E. Paradoxx (This volume is meant to be read as a companion book to Your Standard Adventure)
1. Entry 001 - Creepers

**Entry 001 - Creeper (****_furtim occidere_****)**

The Creeper is considered by many the most terrifying mob in Minecraftia. This is because of its alarming stealth and the ominous hissing noise it makes as it primes itself for destruction. Being a very dangerous mob, it is often hunted and it is widely advised that new users avoid them. But this was not always the case.

At one point, the Creepers were allied with Minecraftians. In fact, they were around far before Minecraftians came to be. At first the Creepers were very helpful. They showed people how to make fire, how to use caves as shelter, and how to cook food. A few Minecraftians even took Creepers as their wives, seeing as how their biologies back then were similar enough to accomodate this interaction. They created hybrids, and today a small percentage of Minecraftians are direct descendants of this line of half-Minecraftian-half-Creeper offspring.

But soon relationships began to sour. It started with a man who called himself a prophet, a man Minecraftians called Dinnerbone. He preached that soon the Creepers would rise up and take control of the land, driving Minecraftians out of their homes and killing all who dared oppose them. Naturally, as with any slander, the Creepers protested. But the prophet Dinnerbone's words resonated within the hearts of many Minecraftians, and soon they took up arms against the green creatures. The Creepers tried to hold them off, but due to their lack of arms (an advantage in evolution at this point) they were quickly driven off.

Ingesting a mixture of sand and gunpowder, a few brave Creepers decided to fight back with a futile suicide mission. They raided the villages at night, and exploded when the number of casualties would be highest. Dinnerbone considered this a fulfilling of his prophecy, and the Minecraftians hailed him as their leader. With his help, the Creepers were driven back into the caves and the forests.

Today, due to their habitual diet of a mixture of sand and gunpowder, they have evolved so that their very blood is an explosive. They now no longer have any choice but to explode on meeting a Minecraftian; it is chiseled into their very heredity. That is why, when a hitherto smiling Creeper pup is told by its parents what its destiny will be, they develop a deep frown that within a week is permanently etched onto their faces.

So you see, it is not the Creepers who are at fault for our continued fear of the armless quadrupedal monsters. It is us.


	2. Entry 002 - Silverfish

**Entry 002 - Silverfish (_argentum pestilentia_)**

When a Silverfish dies, it becomes one with the stone. That is how it has always been, and how it always will be. Silverfish are silicaceous life forms, and therefore are more in common with the stone than with any other arthropod. However, when the stone is broken, the Silverfish that died in it comes back for vengeance. So, technically, a Silverfish is immortal. This has not been lost on Minecraftians, at least those ones that have not been fully urbanized. Testificates for example celebrate the Silverfish as a god species, or manifestations of the angels of their god Testif.

However, to those who worship Notch, Silverfish are defying his creation and therefore must be exterminated. This religious misconception was best shown by the demolition two hundred years ago of a cave. Extremist followers of Notch placed twenty 3x3x3 arrangements of TNT drawing back into the depths of the cavern, and when the explosives went off the cave was completely obliterated. The nearby city thought themselves safe. But lo and behold, along came a swarm of Silverfish, appearing as a great silver wave. They engulfed the town and when the wave had passed the town was a skeletal ruin.

Silverfish are naturally aggressive and will attack Minecraftians and peaceful mobs on sight. They can retreat into stones, boring tunnels into cave walls, floors, and ceilings. The common Silverfish lives in a hive or nest of sorts, with a queen that stays hidden underneath the stone fifty meters down. They can eat through wood and most kinds of stone, which make them a nuisance and a pest.

A mostly unknown fact is that Silverfish come in two varieties. There is the common variety, an arthropod with armor made of stone and two very light-sensitive eyes bulging out of their cylindrical head. Then there is the Sea Silverfish, a Silverfish that is much larger than its land-dwelling counterpart. They dwell in water too deep even for squids to inhabit, for the pressure will obliterate a squid in a wink. But the Sea Silverfish's steel armor protects its body from the pressure. They can grow up to twenty feet in length, and possess a pair of large serrated jaws. And they too, like their land counterparts, can utilize the sea floor as a tunneling system.


	3. Entry 003 - Blazes

**Entry 003 - Blaze (****_igneus doctos_****)**

"I think, therefore I am. Or am I?"

That is a quote from the prominent Blaze scholar D'Har Otara, the writer of several books of history and a former colleague of mine. Contrary to popular belief, Blazes are as smart as if not smarter than Minecraftians. It is just that their language is composed of stony rattles and grinding noises, a byproduct of their mouth lined with molten metal.

Blazes and Minecraftians are currently not speaking to each other. Blazes used to be very fundamental followers of Herobrine, but are now neutral and coexist peacefully with the creatures of the Nether. The Nether is their home dimension. Blazes are not affected negatively by the intense heat and the lava. In fact they are invigorated by the climate of their hellish home. They are blessed with a lofty lifespan of five-hundred years or so, and thus they have considerable time to hone their formidable minds to perfection.

Most Blazes live a solitary life. They take up residence in their own personal Nether Fortresses, and are usually inviting to those they know closely. However, they are fiercely territorial, and many a bloody encounter with a Blaze by a Minecraftian has been the result of simply wanting the latter to leave it alone. Therefore there have been programs in recent years whereby a Blaze is paired with a Minecraftian and left alone on an Overworld island for a week. During that week, they must coexist, and hopefully by the end of the week the two are friendly, even romantic if the situation allows it. This has brought down Blaze attacks by ten percent, even though they still happen.

Blazes have a bizarre physiology. They are possessed of four arms, which are connected by an unconscious psychic bond to its spherical body and rotate below it in seperate orbits. The body is one foot in radius, and houses the brain and the rudimentary lungs and stomach. When waste is produced, the Blaze uses its own natural body heat to burn it off, which is why smoke often emanates from it. It also uses this heat to cook meat inside its stomach, on the occasion that it is delivered raw.

Blazes have their own countries, the largest of which are Dakr'Ogor and Falsa'Doori. These two are at an uneven peace. But they are at war with the Zombie Pigmen and their nation of slaves.

When I ask D'Har about the war, he only sighs. His son died in the fight against the Pigmen, and he has still not gotten over it.


	4. Entry 004 - Pigs

**Entry 004 - Pig (****_avarus porcos_****)**

Pigs are notoriously greedy animals. Pigs can dig up an entire field of crops in less than a week. This is partially why Minecraftians discovered redstone, so that they could create machines that automatically grew and harvested enough grain and carrots for a pig to live on. Pigs are a very big responsibility for farmers and citizens alike. Luckily, the best trained to handle them are the Testificates.

When a pig is given to a Testificate master, the pig is branded and given a unique name, usually relating to the family of the Testificate in question. Then it is ridden around a track to breed a strong pig with plenty of muscle, but also some fat. Then the Testificate, using the unique bond the two species share (a shared ancestral language), teaches the animal how to behave around a farm, and where to eat. Then finally after all this training a farmer can purchase the perfect pig at market.

However, it never used to be this way. In fact, pigs used to be quite wild, running around Minecraftia and ruining all the crops they could find. Ancient tribes of new users ran around trying to hunt them, and in the process discovered that they possessed the most succulent meat. Thus was the unanimous decision made to farm them to perfect maturity... and then kill them.

So now pigs are a cash crop, or cash livestock to be precise. But what is their future? Recently, pigs have begun to be out-competed by cows in the savannah and chickens in the forests. Will they survive another dozen centuries? Only time will tell.


	5. Entry 005 - Zombies

**Entry 005 - Zombie (****_stultus corpus_****)**

If we must scribble a label of pure unnaturality onto any one mob, it would have to be the Zombie. Born from the dead, forced to walk the cubescape once more to serve its dark ressurector, Zombies have no intelligence, only brute strength and wild beastly instinct.

With green skin and lifeless black eyes, Zombies would be very terrifying if not for their weakness and stupidity. Usually in various states of decay, from the freshly dead to the near-Skeletons, the Zombie is resurrected by a dark force, evil entity, wrathful lesser god, or hacker to do his or her bidding. They are controlled in an almost puppet-like manner to carry out a certain goal, whether or not they can. It's not exactly the best way to spend your afterlife.

However, in recent years, Zombies have been resurrected not as warriors but as scientists and other beneficient dead. If a man dies who has a brilliant mind, or a hand as gentle and precise as the tiniest Redstone device, they are brought back to serve Minecraftia through their skills. And, all in all, they do very well. Except of course for one key problem: when exposed to UV radiation, Zombies will deteriorate. They will deteriorate in a fiery plume, and when the smoke clears they will invariably be ashes and dust on the ground.

This is a problem best solved with nothing very much, except for the zombies to be cloistered in a darkened room with only redstone speakers to convey information. However, in recent years, independent inventors have tried to devise ways of making zombies resistant to sunlight. Most involve a spray of some kind that can be used on a zombie to make UV radiation bounce off it. They use different ingredients. Some are mineral based, while others utilize plant and animal matter.

Until this problem is solved, Zombies will forever remain vulnerable to sunlight.

But remember: sometimes we want them to be that way.

_A note from the editor: Will the good professor, in his future work, not be so doom and gloom? That is all I ask and nothing more._


	6. Entry 006 - Skeletons

**Entry 006 - Skeleton (****_ambulans ossa_****) and Wither Skeleton (****_tenebris ossa_****)**

The key difference between zombies and Skeletons is that the Skeleton is a skinned corpse, usually of a Minecraftian or related entity. Whenever some vengeful warlord or hungry mob skins a captured and killed Testificate or user for pleasure or food, an unknown force siezes the body and uses it as its own. Mediums have been hired to converse with the spirit world, to find out why this happens, but so far all attempts have failed.

Skeletons are instantly able to interact with physical projectiles like no other Mob can, save for a Minecraftian. Give a Skeleton a bow, and the land will soon be a pincushion. Give a Skeleton two, and you're basically commiting suicide. However, there are a few drawbacks to combat as a Skeleton. One: the Skeleton's peripheral vision is nonexistant. It can only see in front of itself. This is because the Skeleton has no true eyes, or any eyes whatsoever in fact. The vision comes from inside the eye sockets, driven too far back into the skull to see to the sides. Therefore, the best way to kill a Skeleton is either from behind or to the side. Two: the Skeleton is made of exposed bones, which make great weak spots. For example, the spine is good to jab a sword into, and usually a moderate amount of leverage will send the Skeleton into paralysis or even split it in half completely. Ribs can be torn off to weaken the Skeleton's shoulder support. Leg joints can be jammed with well-placed arrows.

Basically, a Skeleton is what is known as a glass cannon in knowledgeable circles. It is very powerful in attack, but near useless in defense.

All this is cancelled, however, in the more demonic form of a Skeleton: the Wither Skeleton. This subvariety of skeleton is the result of skinning the body of a user or Testificate who has died from gaining the Wither status effect. The Wither effect is a sort of disease, localized to the host body until spread by combat, that gradually kills the host by tainting its blood with dark energy. When the body is skinned, the bones expand to two times their normal size, and develop a dark gray or even black scaly skin. The resulting Wither Skeleton is faster and more agile than a normal Skeleton, and is far harder to vanquish. It usually fashions a sword out of whatever stone is available, sharpening the edge to a razor-thin point. They have been known to use clubs and even sturdy upgraded bows, but that is very uncommon.

For two centuries, ever since the discovering of the End Dimension, people have theorized about the existance of an Ender Skeleton. There has been much argument in the scientific community about this fabled creature. Many believe that the Ender Skeleton, having evolved in the End, can teleport just like Endermen. Some theorize that the Ender Skeleton is actually the reanimated bones of a dead Enderman.

_A note from the editor: If anybody out there decides to perform taxidermy on a dead horse, they should dispose of the bones immediately... preferably into a very deep pit with molten metal at the bottom. Please. Just do it. Oh god. The hooves. Please._


	7. Entry 007 - Spiders

**Entry 007 - Spider (_umbraculum tacebo_) and Cave Spider (_latet araneae_)**

It is advised that, at this moment, none venture into a cave without light and a sword imbued with the Bane of Arthropods. Any kind will do. Spiders are nasty animals. Descended from gigantic ancestors, who thankfully were long gone before users emerged onto Minecraftia, the Spiders of today are vicious and (regretfully) carnivorous.

Each Spider is blessed with four pairs of legs (eight legs total), which they use to scuttle across the ground at tremendous speeds. These legs, as long as a Minecraftian's, are also adept at jumping and swimming. Truly, Spiders are the top natural predator. An adult spider can jump a height of five or even six feet in the air, and from a running jump can make it to about twelve. The ends of their legs are covered in a rough patch of scales which work rather like scales; they will be smooth one way but bumpy and sharp the other way. These patches help them climb walls, but not ceilings. Ceilings are their weakness. If a user builds a roof on his or her house that extends a meter more in either direction from the walls, then he or she is a smart user and will most likely live quite a long time.

Spiders go through three stages in their lives, four if you consider a female Spider becoming a queen. First, they are hatched from black shelled and red spotted eggs, usually in a cave or some other sheltered place. Spiders are extra ferocious in caves, and this is because the spider is usually a mother protecting her young... not to say they are not vicious outside the caves. The second phase of development is when the Spider reaches the age of two weeks. Then it grows frail legs in the space of one night and becomes a juvenile Spider. Its body is still soft, however, and about 25% of all Spider young die within their first month of juvenility. Finally, after two and a half months, the juvenile goes into a stasis that lasts for two days, encasing themselves in webbing; after these two days are over, they emerge as a fully-grown and matured Spider. It is also inside this cocoon of webbing that the Spider's sex is chosen, and there is a 1% chance in a female Spider that a gene will activate that causes her to become a queen.

Being a queen means that the female Spider, instead of laying one egg at a time, lays clutches of a dozen. This can happen weekly or even daily, depending on the individual Spider in question. Queen Spiders can live for a very long time. In fact, one Spider queen who lived in the mountains was found upon her death to have lived to the ripe old age of one thousand and thirty-nine.

Cave Spiders are the more reclusive variety of Spider. They are about a third smaller than a normal Spider. Unlike their more outgoing relatives, they live inside environments deep underground that match their tastes. You see, Cave Spiders have a natural deficiency in the stuff that allows them to spin webs; without webs they cannot catch bats, and they will slowly die of starvation. So they have to eat wood, but not just any wood. No, the Cave Spiders have to eat wood that is cut by the hand of user or Testificate, for the planks are made of the part of the tree that is the most laden with the silk-making protein: the inside of the trunk. Bark is hard to gnaw through, especially with the Cave Spider's primitive jaws.

Cave Spiders often move into mineshafts that the more aboveground species have abandoned. But when they cannot find one that has been left to nature, they resort to hostile takeovers. And their primary weapon is the deadly toxin found in their fangs...

_A note from the editor: Please, professor. You're scaring the kiddies._


	8. Entry 008 - Endermen

**Entry 008 - Enderman (_oculos hyacintho_) and Ender Dragon (N/A)**

The End is a series of moonlets, in steady orbit around Minecraftia. They make an orbit around the planet every fifty years. So every fifty years, for a month, the Moon is joined by several large shards of light, intersecting at the end of the month and then continuing around again in another fifty year cycle.

When the Moon and the End intersect, the reaction of lunar energy and the natural resonance from the End's Obsidian Towers cause a mass teleportation event. What is teleported to the surface of Minecraftia, you may ask? Endermen. Endermen are three meters tall, skeletally thin, and terrifying. They have pitch-black fur growing all over their bodies, but the fur is short enough and thick enough to pass off as skin. In reality the skin underneath is a rather mottled gray. Endermen are blessed with extremely keen eyes that can see for miles and miles without blurring, and can adjust for different distances.

A common Enderman has the gift of teleportation. It can move from one place to another instantaneously. However, its teleportation has a few limits. One: the Enderman cannot teleport more than two miles from where it was. Two: The Enderman cannot teleport into water or lava or over areas with such fluids in them. It is physically impossible for them.

One of the things to remember when dealing with Endermen is never to look them directly in the eyes. In End culture, looking somebody directly in the eyes is a sign of aggression, and the Enderman will interpret it as such no matter what. The only way to stop this from happening is wearing a jack-o-lantern over your head. Nobody really knows why, but it works well enough that an Enderman confronted by a user wearing a carved pumpkin will be as docile as a cow.

Endermen have rudimentary language skills, but just enough to develop long-lasting friendships with users. Sometimes out of these friendships hybrids are born. These hybrids have the speech powers of users as well as all the powers of an Enderman. Today, about 5% of the population are Ender-Craftian hybrids.

Endermen are ruled by the Ender Dragon, which is a curious case. This breed of beasts used to be the Endermen's steeds thousands of years ago before they evolved enough to teleport. However, a massive disaster destroyed all of the nesting space, and all but one of the dragons fled to the moon. The one that remained gradually began to assert his power over the End. Using a quick wit, intellect, and power, he constructed a series of obsidian towers to assert his dominance. Unbeknownst to him, these towers, when combined with moonlight, teleported several thousand Endermen to the planet below. This is how Endermen learned to teleport by themselves.


	9. Entry 009 - Squids

**Entry 009 - Squid (_adsunt ovium_)**

Perhaps the most misunderstood mob of all time, the common squid is actually quite harmless. They are also the most common sea mob, and cover all the oceans of Minecraftia. So when there is a tsunami or flood, victims often find their houses covered in dead squids and their lawns smothered in inky water.

Squids are pacifists. They do not attack, and this is because their skin is very soft and fragile. If they were to challenge a stronger mob to a fight, they would lose in about ten seconds either from ink loss or damage to a vital organ. They can run from danger very well, and their tentacles can push them through the water as fast as a boat. Mostly when a Minecraftian sees them they are basking in the sun, so they do not appear to be very fast creatures.

Since about twenty years ago, squids have slowly become more and more demonized. It all started when the popular Minecraftian celebrity SkyDoesMinecraft was tripped up by a squid on one of his frequent adventure. He immediately slaughtered the squid and declared that he hated them and they would forever be his enemy. Since the entertainer had and still has a very large fanbase, his viewers reciprocated him and began to kill squids on their own. Soon, in all major waterfront cities, the squid population dropped sharply. In a year the number of squids had been cut almost in half, from about 50,000,000,000 to about 26,000,000,000 individuals. Scientists decided to place squids tentatively on an endangered mobs list, the first member on said list in fact.

Squids have become subjects of several horror movies, mostly as wild killers and failed scientific experiments. The most major is It Attacks!, a movie released fifty years ago. It stars a man and his tamed Creeper friend, as they track down a killer squid that is rampaging all over the capital city. It was a hit and made 32,000,000 gold bars, even with the scientific impossibilities (for example, Squids will die when they are on land for too long, but the monster has been in the capital for a month already). Several imitator movies were made, notably Attack of Tentacula and The Monster That Wouldn't Die. They were also respected and made lots of money, although not as much as It Attacks!, which was the highest grossing film until a groundbreaking movie called Void Wars.

Although most squids are not inherently good or evil, there are some squids that are pure evil. For example, the current squid king, who is not merely evil but actually demonic, having subjugated his own people and caused the near genocide of the Ocelot population. The Sky Army comes in useful in efforts to resist the squid king's atrocities.


	10. Entry 010 - Wolves

**Entry 010 - Wolf (_canis lupus_) **

An old proverb says: "Befriend a user, and he'll betray you; befriend a wolf and he'll follow you to the end." This is very true. Wolves are loyal and brave animals, who will as the proverb says follow their masters to the end. In fact, one notable wolf chose to die with her master, a powerful Testificate chief, rather than survive and move to a new master. However, an untamed wolf is unpredictable.

The common wolf is about two feet at the shoulder. It has a long muzzle, with a black wet nose at the end covered in rough skin. It has thin to medium white or gray fur, and a tail that is about two feet long. The animal itself is about four to five feet long. It is gifted with sharp fangs that keep themselves in top shape on their own. The wolf is naturally neutral, and will warily go about its business when it encounters a user or mob. However, its eyes will not leave it. If the user or mob accidentally hurts or kills the wolf, its body produces a sort of message to other nearby wolves. Those wolves are driven to the spot and attack anything in sight. During this rage, they turn demonic, with red eyes and slavering fangs. In addition, the wolf brings out its scythe-like claws and rakes at the attacker until the attacker is killed. The claws are translucent, and in the heat of battle they are almost invisible.

Wolves are very resilient and have quite a lot of energy. Thus they can walk and run long distances at one time without food, drink, or rest. The ultimate example is the ongoing expedition to the legendary former resting place of the Far Lands, wherein the expedition leader's dog is a larger-sized wolf. This wolf has since appeared on merchandise, T-shirts, and etched onto sets of armor.

Wolves and Ocelots are often pitted against each-other in the popular media, appearing as opponents on gladiatorial competitions, rival pets in classy spy and adventure movies, and even on war banners. There has been talk of bribing Notch to create a "wocelot", but so far all attempts have been for naught.

_A note from the editor: What? What, really? Dead serious?... Please tell me you aren't serious, Professor. PLEASE._


	11. Entry 011 - Ghasts

**Entry 11 - Ghast (terrorem nubem)**

The Ghast, poster-mob of the Nether, has long been one of the most reviled things in this hell of fire and netherrack. It is despised, feared, and even respected by travelers and even other mobs. However, in recent years the Ghast has been portrayed in Minecraftian popular culture as just a misunderstood lost soul. This could not be further from the truth.

The Blaze scholar D'Har Otara recounts an encounter with a Ghast in his collection of memoirs, "The Compass and the Sword." He writes:

_"As I passed through a deep valley, carved in soft Netherrack, I did see closing in on me a frightful sight. Yes, it was the terrible Ghast, tentacles flowing from its body, the twisted face locked in a blind stupor. I made haste to pass through the valley, but the Ghast opened its maw and its dread eyes, and spoke in a cold voice, in a manner not of vocal cords but of the soul. It spoke horrible words, but I recalled my Blaze doctrine and did not give in to its evil verbal machinations. It attempted to attack, but I had the upper hand, being possessed of a more advanced system of fire projectiles, and slaughtered it, although the fight was long and exhausting. Then I went along my way."_

The Ghast is very definitely malevolent, and will actively hunt whatever is near. It is usually far faster than its target, and has the advantage of being able to fly. If it cannot catch its prey at close range, it resorts to an internal combustion system to create fireballs. The fireballs have a long range and cause small fiery explosions. There have even been reports of so-called "supercharged" Ghasts, that like charged Creepers produce larger and more damaging explosions than the norm. These supercharged Ghasts have virtually one in a million chances of appearing, so they are nothing to worry about if one wants to visit the Nether on holiday.

Common Ghasts have a large, pale, roughly bell-shaped main body, with a diameter of four meters. Much like a parachute, this allows the Ghast to hang in the air for a longer time than if it were simply freefalling. This buoyancy is compounded by the Ghast's nine thick tentacles, each about three meters long, which are composed of a lighter material than the main bell. The Ghast uses these tentacles to keep itself in the air, and to steer. The Ghast's bell possesses two dark red, almost black eyes, that can be almost adjusted in a sense to focus on prey up to twenty miles away. The Ghast also has a mouth, which is more of a gunbarrel than an actual mouth, as its purpose is to accommodate the rapid discharge of fireballs from its combustion system. The mouth is the large bell cavity between the tentacles.

Oddly enough, many Pigmen have mastered the art of riding Ghasts. The precise details of how to go about this are unknown.

_A note from the editor: And don't you go trying either! This book's supposed to sell for at least ten years, and we don't need a bloody recall yet!_


End file.
